Tuesday, 25 April: The Pilgrims, the Hebrew model of national migration, and late Anglo-American culture / vertical immigration.  Of Plymouth Plantation . . .  Jonathan Raban, from Hunting Mr. Heartbreak: A Discovery of America [handout]

·        Text-objective discussion leader (Raban article): J. Elizabeth Meche

This article had the same feel as the Macy’s store discussed within it. So much to do, so much to see, so much to talk about… I’m getting a nosebleed.

Raban introduces us first to the simple, friendly, realistic world of America in the early seventies. We had not yet been jaded by lying presidents and useless, expensive battles in far away countries.

One could walk into a store, as Raban had, and purchase exactly what he needed at a reasonably price.

Fast forward about twenty years. America has discovered need is synonymous with want, desired interchangeable with required.

Raban’s first focus is on the Commercialization of the American Dream.

You aren’t buying the white button down shirt, you’re buying the whole atmosphere surrounding the shirt, an atmosphere decidedly un-American as Raban describes it.

Think: Abercrombie and Fitch

            Fossil

            Victoria’s Secret

            The Gap

Buy this shirt and you too can be a clean cut professional suburbanite.

Buy the (BLANK) and you too can be (BLANK).

The philosophy of “Fake it to make it.”

The same rules apply on the street:

                        The Caste System of the American Reality

“After the saucepan came the aluminum tankard, the tin plate, the greasy cap, the Styrofoam cup, the cracked and dirt line palm” (348).

Experienced beggars to genuine poor.  Raban gives the impression the panhandlers are more successful than the open-handed needed. This insinuation illustrates how distance plays a part in our willingness to give. They might be contagious. This is why the upper-middle class New Yorkers live sooooooo far removed from “down there,” IT could be catching.

“Competition meant advertising.” Beggars understand the concept just as well—perhaps better than—Macy’s executives.

The only difference between the Air people and the Street people is the frequency with which each group performs personal hygiene rituals.

The Easy with which One can Slip from Dream to Reality.

The attitude of “fit into the puzzle or get the hell away from me” runs rampant through Raban’s New York. “I kept on barging into a figure who darkly resembled Henry James’s inconceivable alien…Where ever he was, he looked equally out of place and I grew increasingly ashamed of him” (346-347). See also first paragraph of pg. 351. How easily might one become invisible?

Questions for contemplation:

1. Why does Raban refer to himself and his life as “Alice?”

            1a. Is this a reflection of the fragility of middle class America?

2. Consider the “Air People.” Are Americans trying to escape America?

3. Why is New York quintessentially American? (pg. 352)

4. Why can’t Americans really see America?